ZimmerMotorcars

Don Johnson and the Zimmer QuickSilver

D. A. "Don" Johnson, the car designer and not the actor, was the former General Motors designer who drew the QuickSilver, Zimmer's two-seat coupé on a stretched Pontiac Fiero of 1986 to 1988. His signature is on the car's door-sill plate.

About the pictureA QuickSilver's cockpit, photographed in 2015: the car, not the man.

The cockpit of a QuickSilver with ivory leather seats, wood dash panels and an ivory leather-rimmed steering wheel.
Stand-in The cockpit of a QuickSilver, photographed on 31 January 2015: the car's interior, not a picture of the man.Eric Friedebach, CC BY 2.0

This page is about D. A. "Don" Johnson the car designer, not Don Johnson the actor. He designed the QuickSilver, the two-seat coupé that Zimmer Motor Cars built on a stretched Pontiac Fiero from 1986 to 1988, and he signed it: "D. A. Johnson" is on the plate on its door sill.⁠1​2​3

A former General Motors designer

Sources for Don Johnson

Patrick Bedard, "QuickSilver!", Car and Driver, Apr 1987, vol. 32, pp. 36–40⁠1; Collectible Automobile, "1986–88 Zimmer QuickSilver Sport Coupe: The First 'Neo-Modern'", Aug 1993, pp. 85–87⁠2; Zimmer Motor Cars Corp., Pompano Beach, Florida, 1987 press kit (Golden Spirit and QuickSilver), covering letter of 31 Jul 1987; price list of 1 Dec 1986⁠3

What the period record holds is short. Car and Driver, testing the car in April 1987, introduced him as a former General Motors designer, and Zimmer's own literature, as Collectible Automobile quoted it in 1993, described him the same way. No source read names the GM studios he worked in, the cars he worked on there or when he left, nor what he designed after Zimmer.⁠1​2

The QuickSilver design

By Collectible Automobile's account the work began in 1983. It was a new kind of Zimmer: not a 1930s touring car like the Golden Spirit but a low, modern two-seater, which Zimmer likened to the two-seat Thunderbird, with the engine behind the seats where the Fiero carried it. Zimmer stretched the Fiero's steel frame ahead of the doors and behind the rear wheels and replaced its plastic panels with a fibreglass body of Johnson's shape, new in everything but the glass, with heavy chrome bumpers. Popular Mechanics saw something of the American luxury coupés of the day in its new shapes.

Zimmer showed the car to its dealers in February 1986 and put it on sale that April.⁠2​4​5​1​6​3

The long tail and chrome rear bumper of a silver QuickSilver seen from the rear three-quarter.
His long tail on the Fiero: a silver QuickSilver from the rear three-quarter at Amenia, New York, in September 2021.Mr.choppers, CC BY-SA 3.0

What the press said

Car and Driver's cover story of April 1987 let the designer sum the car up: "This car is about style," Johnson said. Of the production car, he said, "Oh, yes, I'm absolutely thrilled with it." Patrick Bedard's figures were hard on the car, but he ended his test on its designer's name, as the reviews quote. Venture's photograph caption in 1986 had buyers "lured as much by their flash as their rarity", and the Miami Herald was ruder about the shape in 1987.⁠1​7​8

Not the Golden Spirit, and not the actor

The actor's series, Miami Vice, does have a Zimmer in it, by the Internet Movie Cars Database's count: a Golden Spirit coupé in the background of one episode, not a QuickSilver.⁠9​10​11

Sources

Sources are given as plain text; their addresses are on the sources page.

  • Primarymade at the time, by the maker or by people who were there
  • Referenceserious later work: clubs, specialists, magazines, books
  • Databaseresults and listings, entry by entry
  1. Patrick Bedard, "QuickSilver!", Car and Driver, Apr 1987, vol. 32, pp. 36–40, pp. 36–40, the designer and his signature; pp. 36–40; pp. 36–40, the designer; pp. 36–40, the conversion and the door-sill plate; pp. 36–40, Johnson's words and Bedard's ending. Primary
  2. Collectible Automobile, "1986–88 Zimmer QuickSilver Sport Coupe: The First 'Neo-Modern'", Aug 1993, pp. 85–87, pp. 85–87, the company's literature on its designer; pp. 85–87; pp. 85–87, the start of the work and the company's literature; pp. 85–87, the work from 1983. Reference
  3. Zimmer Motor Cars Corp., Pompano Beach, Florida, 1987 press kit (Golden Spirit and QuickSilver), covering letter of 31 Jul 1987; price list of 1 Dec 1986, the QuickSilver release; releases; release "Zimmer intro's 1987 QuickSilver": the two-seat Thunderbird. Primary
  4. Daily Oklahoman, from Crain News Service, "Firm Hopes Sports Car Will Help Pocketbook", 7 Sep 1986, the dealers' convention, February 1986. Primary
  5. Monrovia News-Post, "Quicksilver Introduced By Zimmer", 20 Apr 1986, the launch in April 1986. Primary
  6. Popular Mechanics, "America the Beautiful" (designer cars), "Zimmer Quicksilver", Apr 1987, p. 80, p. 80, the styling. Primary
  7. Jack Hayes, "Ostentatious — and priced accordingly", Venture, Jul 1986, the photograph caption. Primary
  8. Joe Rhodes, "Autos as Art", Miami Herald, 20 Sep 1987, the QuickSilver's looks. Primary
  9. Michael Langberg, "Zimmer has 'Golden Spirit'", Fort Lauderdale News and Sun-Sentinel, 22 Mar 1981 (Sunday), p. 3F, p. 3F, the sketch by Paul Zimmer. Primary
  10. J. P. Faber, "He produces immaculate autos for the filthy rich", St. Petersburg Times, from United Press International, 17 Oct 1982, the drawing of 1976. Primary
  11. Internet Movie Cars Database (IMCDb), Zimmer: make and model lists and vehicle pages, Miami Vice, episode 3.10. Database